South Korea’s Tom Kim accused his American opponents of poor sportsmanship and swearing at him as tensions flared once again at the Presidents Cup in Montreal.
The US won both of Saturday’s fourballs and foursomes sessions 3-1 to move 11-7 in front of the International team with Sunday’s 12 singles matches to come.
It was Tom Kim and Kim Si-woo’s match against Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele in the alternate shot foursomes that got heated.
The South Korean pair had already beaten Keegan Bradley and Wyndham Clark 4&3 in the fourballs before taking on Cantlay and Schauffele.
Two down at the seventh, Tom Kim was angry that a three-foot par putt to halve the hole was not conceded by the Americans.
After holing the putt, the 22-year-old laid down his putter next to the pin to illustrate just how close he was.
Using their anger as motivation, Tom Kim holed a 37-footer on the ninth before they levelled the match on the 10th.
Having fallen behind again by the 16th, Kim Si-woo produced a magnificent chip from the rough to level the match heading into the final two holes. He celebrated wildly by imitating Steph Curry’s ‘goodnight’ celebration on the green.
“My favorite NBA player is Steph Curry, so that’s what I did,” said Kim.
“It didn’t finish well, but yeah, I was excited,” he added after the Americans had the last, with Cantlay holing a birdie putt on the 18th to win the match.
The drama did not finish there though. Tom Kim, who was involved in a spat with world number one Scottie Scheffler on day one, accused his opponents – without specifying who – of swearing at him.
“As it got towards the end, it got a little feisty out there,” he said.
“I could hear some players cursing at us. I don’t think there was good sportsmanship there. But it’s all part of the fun. I understand it.
“The US team definitely motivated us to go out there.”
The accusation was denied by Kim’s opponents.
“I felt like Pat and I, we treated the Kims with the utmost respect. We’re trying to quieten the crowds down when they were hitting,” said Schauffele.
“I have no clue if anyone was doing any of that. I don’t believe any of our guys would do something like that. So I’m not sure what he was hearing.”
Cantlay said he “didn’t even know what the goodnight gesture was” and was not affected by his opponents’ actions.
